Destiny-The Sovngarde Chronicles
by INTIMIDATOR13
Summary: Join "Victory or Sovngarde" on their quest to grab sweet loot and perform sick jumps throughout Bungie's popular new game.
1. Chapter 1

**Episode 1: Vex-itcong On Our Six!**

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The sun shined brightly, bringing its glorious luminescence to the denizens of the Last City on Earth. Standing high above this city was the Tower, a monolith that housed the Guardians, warriors blessed by the Light of the Traveler who floated above. While the shipyard hummed with the activity of hundreds of ships coming and going, one ship in particular stood out. It was the "Outrageous Fortune", a state of the art jumpship built using pre-Collapse schematics found beyond the City's walls.

This ship had the appearance of a boomerang, the nose forming the tip of a curved triangle. The rear sported four thrusters, with two more tube like apparatuses usually attached beneath the ship. This particular day, however, one of those typically attached engines was conspicuously absent. The rest of the ship looked a bit worse for the wear as well. While the paint job typically consisted of a snow white body with some horizontal blue stripes, the majority of the vehicle was blackened with carbon scoring and bullet holes. A dent the size of small twenty-first century sedan was visible on the right side. The horn like structure that typically adorned the top of the ship was missing its upper half and sparking wires were poking in its place.

The head shipwright, one Amanda Holliday, was visibly shaken by the monumental task of once again repairing this vessel. Yet again, its owner had done something incredibly dangerous and stupid, specifically taking on a Cabal cruiser solo. The bullet holes, scorch marks, and broken pieces made sense based off of the story Holliday had been told, but the large dent in the side baffled her.

"What did Jack do to make this dent?" she asked aloud to no one in particular. "Wait, is he ramming things again? Jack! You son of a bitch! I told you to stop doing that! Do you know how much trouble I have to go through to fix impact damage? Why, the nerve of that idiot! I ought to beat him with this wrench the next time I see him!"

To most of the shipwright's assistants, such a fit of anger was almost expected of the raging blonde woman, as Jack had a way of destroying ships, while Holliday defended her "babies" with the enthusiasm of a mother panther. The newest assistant, however, trembled with fear, the red scarf about Holliday's neck reminding him of a bull that had just gored a matador. The bartender of the nearby lounge arrived, a bottle of whiskey in hand.

"Mr. Redgrave sends his regards."

In that nearby lounge, several guardians were gathered around a small rectangular table behind the bar. At one end of the table, with his back to the wall, sat Jack Redgrave, the infamous "Ship Wrecker". Depending on who you asked, he was either the best pilot that the solar system had ever seen, or a reckless idiot with incredible luck. Either way, he left a trail of burning scrap metal everywhere he flew. Garbed in a buttoned up black trench coat that matched his long hair, he was nearly invisible in the dimly lit back room. The only significant source of light around Jack was the strange set of gauntlet that he wore. Upon his wrists and running up to almost his elbow were matching tubes of solar energy, veritable fireballs on his arms. These were the strange "Sunbreakers" recently sold to many Warlocks by the shifty merchant Xur, who seemed to come and go as he pleased, much to the dismay of the Tower's security teams. Jack's boots were hidden by the table, but it was no huge loss for any fashionistas present. Said boots were simple black boots with some silver colored shin guards.

What most people would usually first notice about Jack, assuming one ignored the glowing gauntlets, was the strange, blue holographic pyramid projected by the silver band on his right arm. The history of the gauntlet was mysterious, going back to the "Precipice of Flame" or some other nonsense. Jack hadn't actually paid attention to the merchant's description. He just thought that it looked cool.

Further adding to Jack's odd sense of fashion was the blue skull painted on his face. While the memories of his past life were hazy, Jack recalled being of a vaguely Celtic lineage, and thus celebrated it with woad painting. His ally Glen had called it "stupid" but Jack didn't care for the advice of a man who spent most of his free time trying to scare birds.

To Jack's right, sitting on the adjacent sofa, was Corey James, a white man with a ronin haircut. He also wore a trench coat, his composed of several shades of grey arranged in a digital camouflage pattern.. Adorning his right arm was a white armband with a red triangle on it that symbolized the New Monarchy. Corey had also purchased the solar gauntlets from Xur and happily wore them, actually making use of them in combat to channel extra power into his solar grenades.

Opposite Jack was Coop-43, an exo that was constantly reminded that he looked a lot like General Grievous from the sixth _Star Wars_ movie. With a white robotic head that bore small antennae on each side, both angled diagonally towards the rear, the comparison was pretty accurate, much to the death machine's dismay. Coop's helmet lay on the table, the residue of his furious light escaping from cracks in it's visor. Said helmet was obviously not airtight, but it blocked bullets and exos didn't need to breathe anyway. The armor that Coop constantly wore(comfort being irrelevant for a mechanical man), covered him from neck to toe in square plates, the only real ornamentation being the extra plating on the shoulders. A plate was placed on the front and back of each shoulder, extending about a foot above said shoulders. This created the visual effect of Coop having small wings or perhaps spikes, depending on what angle one looked at him from. The armor was colored completely green, with the exception of the yellow chest piece and the clear visor on the aforementioned helmet. Like most Titans, Coop-43 wore a tassel around his waist. His bore a skeleton holding a lightning bolt, which the robot thought would intimidate organics. After all, it had certainly spooked him!

To Jack's left stood Glen Magnum, the infamous "Chinese Elvis". This short, Asian man with an Elvis hair-do was engaged in a bout of furious finger pointing at some poor soul who had made the mistake of walking into the V.O.S. private lounge. From the "Lucky Raspberry" on his chest to his white boots, Glen was all about style. The split cape on his back was weathered and falling apart, but Glen wore it with pride, viewing each new stain and tear as a mark of honor.

Jack had ordered his scotch on the rocks, giving him ammunition with which to pelt the confused man talking to Glen. The first ice cube went wide left, but the second one found its mark, nailing the civilian's eye with alcoholic fury. The now terrified man ran away, returning the lounge to a state of relative peace.

"Now," Jack began, a smirk on his face, "I can get back to telling you guys about the vault. You may recall that archive in the Ishtar Sink that some of us hit about a week ago. Well, the ghosts have finished compiling all of that data, and have found a way into the Vex's most mysterious stronghold on Venus. As to what's actually inside the vault, no one knows, but if the Vex have kept it this well protected for so long, then it must be important. We're going to be the team to find out what's in there!"

"So what's the catch?" Coop-43 queried. "I mean, I can't be as simple as just walking in. The Vanguard have known the location of the Vault for years, but no one has been able to penetrate that outer wall."

"Our understanding of Vex door mechanisms has advanced considerably in the last week. Ever since we busted into the Black Garden, our Ghosts have been tearing Vex Security a new one. The archive has shown us that it is possible to hijack the Vex equipment in the area surrounding the Vault in order to make a "Vex spire," just like the one we made in the Black Garden. Since these spires appear to work as keys, you can see where this is going. Now, there will be three areas that need to be secured in order for us to activate this spire. Unfortunately, this will all have to be done at once, as the Vex will likely reclaim any areas we take within seconds of us leaving them."

"I'm assuming that this is going to take more than just the four of us?" Glen interrupted.

"Right, we're going to need at least six people for this one," Jack replied. "So, how about Heather?"

"Uh, I don't think that will work," Corey piped in. "For one thing, she's busy collecting Fallen weapons for Banshee-44, but even if she wasn't, she's a little pissed at you right now."

"Oh, right, the Crucible incident with her boyfriend. Look, Alex had it coming."

"Jack, you snuck up on him with a rocket launcher, then proceeded to teabag him on live television."

"He was camping with a sniper rifle!"

"Then, in the very next round, you set him on fire, tiger-palmed his face, and Sparta-kicked him off of a cliff. I think Lord Shax creamed his jeans after that one."

"Anyway," Jack started, attempting to steer the conversation away from his fit of spiteful jealousy, "I suppose she's going to turn the job down. How about Seph? We could always use another sniper."

"Cayde sent him to Mars," Glen explained. "I believe he said something about finally hunting down Valus Ta'aurc."

"How about Nathaniel? Ooh, I just remembered! He and Merlin-23 both just got back from some scouting missions on the moon. We should get in touch with them before they ship out again."

"We're really getting the gang back together," Corey mused aloud. "We haven't been in such a large group in ages. When was the last time we were in a fireteam of more than three? Was it the last "Sparrow X Games" in June?"

"I think so," Glen replied, beaming with pride. "Those jumps were sick."

"So sick," the other three all replied at once, unified in their love of being totally extreme.

"There's just one problem," Coop-43 explained. "Jack, will you be alright with Venus?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, it *is* a jungle world. Parts of it are similar to Earth jungles, like the ones in Vietnam. We all know how you feel about Vietnam. Jack, are you listening? Hello? Jack?"

Jack's expression was lifeless and unblinking. His hands twitched. In an instant, the table before the wizard was flipped over, drinks flying in all directions. The mad mage knelt down behind the flipped table and retrieved the orange machine gun hidden below it, the "Zombie Apocalypse WF-47", a V.O.S. standard issue weapon.

"Charlie's on our six! I got V.C. all over my A.O.! We need immediate close air support!"

"Oh, crap!"

"Not again!"

"No, no, no, no!"

Coop-43 activated his defensive matrix, producing a protective blue bubble to take cover in. Corey dove from his sofa into the bubble to join Coop. Glen vanished from sight, his footsteps echoing as he sprinted out of the lounge.

It was just another day for the men of V.O.S.


	2. Chapter 2

**Episode 2: Oh, Look, the Plot**

"Look, Holliday, I'm sorry. I just ran out of ammo and-"

"That's bullcrap and you know it! There were five rockets left in the tray!"

Of all the enemies Jack Redgrave had faced, none were as terrifying as an angry shipwright with a wrench. As he tried, in vain, to calm Holliday down, his friends quietly shuffled out of the docking bays and left him to his fate. Ten minutes later, the menagerie of V.O.S. ships finally met up in orbit.

"So," Coop-43 echoed through the ship's comms, "I see you survived the wrath of Ms. Holliday."

"Yeah," Jack replied, rubbing his bruised forehead, "but it was rough. That woman can wield a wrench like an arc blade. I did manage to fight back, though. Her hair is positively drenched in scotch."

"I think she likes you, man. You two fight like an old married couple."

"Coop, I don't think that attempting to murder me with a wrench is a sign of affection. Anyway, I'm glad you guys could all make it. The only one we're missing now is Glen. Where'd he get off to?"

"Oh, his usual ship got totaled. He was waiting for a replacement from some friends at the Reef."

"Oh, really? What happened to his normal ship?"

"He wouldn't say. Every time we ask him, he just mumbles something about birds and walks off."

Then, it appeared. Rising from Earth's atmosphere like a majestic space eagle, the ugliest ship ever built joined the V.O.S. fleet.

"Uh, Glen, is that you? What is that…that…thing…" Jack trailed off, dumbfounded by what lay before him. Never, in his life, had he seen anything so poorly designed. The ship he saw was labeled "Chasing Infinity", and it was an engineering disaster. Not only was the ship in no way aerodynamic, but iit also just looked ridiculous. The ship's profile from the front was akin to a flying boom box, with two great wings shaped as squares. The center of the ship brought new meaning to the term "cockpit", as it was rather phallic-looking. To top off all of the poor design choices, the ship's painters had apparently decided that blinding the Fallen through sheer force of ugliness would be the best thing to do. The entire ship was garishly pink, save for the yellow crown painted on the side.

"Shut up," Glen stated flatly.

"How does that thing even fly? The sides are all box shaped and the middle looks like a pink-"

"Shut up," Glen stated again, this time with a bit more anger in his voice.

"Yeah, it does look just like a-" Corey began before being cut off.

"Shut up! It's just a temporary ship! This is the only ship that my friends could send on short notice."

"Alright then, no need to be such a dick about it."

"I hate all of you." Glen mumbled something about "winged rats", then hit his thrusters and flew ahead of the group, eventually disappearing in a blue flash.

"Well, we've succeeded in making Glen mad already. This should be a productive day for us!" Jack bragged. His comrades joined in on the celebration, and they all cheered throughout the jump to Venus.

The jump, as it's name would suggest, was nearly instantaneous. View screens and cockpit windows were soon filled with hues of green and yellow, welcoming the Guardians to a lush jungle world. The trip down to the surface, however, would take some time. Conventional propulsion had to be used to close the smaller distance, as trying to jump to specific point within a planet's atmosphere tended to end poorly. Ships could leave the warp at high speeds right next to mountains, buildings, volcanoes, or even under a world's oceans. Even for the somewhat reckless V.O.S. team, blind jumps were just not worth the risk.

To fill the time, Jack initiated conversation with his Ghost, hoping to draw some more answers out of the cryptic and unhelpful asshole. Several questions were still burning in the back of Jack's mind about the state of the world since his death. While Jack's memories were hazy, he recalled being a 20th century American soldier of some sort. He had vague flashes of jungle fighting, so he figured it must have been the Vietnam War. It was possible that he had been involved in some operations in a random South American country, but the word "Charlie" kept coming back up, reinforcing the notion that it had indeed been Vietnam. What bothered Jack, however, wasn't his own fuzzy past. To be miraculously brought back from the dead after centuries was pretty incredible, so if process had some imperfections then that seemed very reasonable. The problem was that no one could tell Jack when, exactly, did the Golden Age start? Everyone knew that the Traveler was found on Mars, but no one could tell Jack what year that had happened.

Further confusing Jack was the Collapse. If the giant ball of magic had propelled human civilization ahead so far, then how could it all fall apart so quickly and so drastically? What even was the Collapse? How could the apparently huge and advanced populations of Earth and all of her colonies get wiped out? What even wiped them out? Was it an invasion? Where did the invaders go afterwards? Why didn't they finish off the pitiful bands left roaming the ruins of Earth? Was it a plague? How did it spread from planet to planet? Why was it no longer a threat?

At heart of these questions lay a few even more important questions. What was the Traveler? Was it sentient? Did it speak? How did it uplift humanity? What was the deal with its ancient enemy? The "Darkness" had allegedly hunted the Traveler across space for eons, and finally set it's sights on humanity, bringing about the Collapse. What, then, was the Darkness? The Speaker seemed to refer to the Darkness as all of the various enemies that the City's Guardians fought, but Jack called bull on that very early on. The Fallen were known to arrive on great skiffs to loot human worlds in the wake of the collapse, meaning that they couldn't have been a part of what actually caused the collapse. The Cabal were also latecomers. It was unclear when the Hive arrived to attack Earth's moon, but they were at war with the Fallen. The Cabal would also probably not particularly enjoy the Hive's company.

Yet another mysterious force of this supposed "Darkness" was the race of murderous machines known as the Vex, whom humans had apparently had contact with before the Collapse. The Vex were a force of destruction, destroying all life in their path and turning worlds into machines. As such, the Jack had seen Vex fighting both Fallen and Cabal in his travels. He was willing to bet they would fight the Hive as well, given the opportunity.

"Ghost, can I have a word with you?"

"Of course," the sentient rubics cube replied as it emerged from one of Jack's pockets. Jack raised his hand in rage, preparing to swat the "Little Light" out of the airlock.

"How many times do I have to tell you? That voice has *got* to go. I like you, Ghost. I really do. However, I hate whoever you got your voice from with a raging fury that would make the Incredible Hulk look like a calm, rational, responsible member of society, who knits sweaters for the homeless and saves kittens from trees."

"I'm sorry," the annoyingly monotone voice replied, its sound still reminding Jack of nails on a chalkboard. Jack then mentally apologized to all of the nails being run over chalkboards, as he realized that comparing those sounds to his machine's voice would be unfair and insulting.

"Search your databanks. Find that guy who played in those movies about the killer robots from the future. You know, the guy who needed your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle."

"Jack, those movies came out some time after the Vietnam War and your likely death. How do you know about them?"

"That is a very good question. Perhaps I didn't die in the war. Maybe I lived to be eighty-five and had several grandchildren."

"I hope not. You are not cut out to be a father."

"Shut up and get terminated."

"Audio files found. Processing…"

The next sound to be heard inside of the ship was something between a cry of pain and a dog dry heaving. To attempt put it into onomatopoeia would be unprofessional and absurd, but those are two traits that my readers will have to appreciate if they intend to enjoy my work.

"Aaawhloo!" the little machine cried, his horrible voice acting now replaced by the manly tones of an Austrian death machine. "I must protect John Connor! Get to the choppa!"

Jack broke out into hysterical laughter, forgetting that his microphone was still on. For the entire remainder of the trip down to Venus's surface, V.O.S. comms were full of the sounds of an entire team of men yelling for their glorious leader to shut the hell up. Jack did not care. They did not hear what had just happened. The could not possibly comprehend his joy.

It was really shaping up to be a good day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Needs More Rockets**

****The Sol system was a dangerous place during the days of V.O.S. Earth and Venus weren't the only places where Guardians could find work. The system's famous red planet, named for the old god of war, more than lived up to it's title. Across the howling wastes of Mars, war was aged endlessly. A race of sentient machines, the Vex, sought to remove the occupying forces of the Cabal, a race of giants bent on destruction. Between these two great armies were Earth's Guardians, hoping to discover human secrets lost to the unforgiving sands of time.

Amongst the shifting sands and burning craters, a large structure stood out. Unlike the odd, ruined skyscraper that stuck out of the dunes, this structure bore no broken glass or human items. This was the massive land tank, used as a mobile headquarters by Cabal Commander Valus Tau'arc. It's giant treads were still, it's hangar bay opened. Several burnt out Cabal Interceptor tanks were visible at the entrance, damaged by what appeared to be recent fighting. A menagerie of dead Cabal bore a diverse set of wounds, a testament to the force that had recently come through the area. Most of the dead soldiers bore multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and face, but some had no bullet wounds at all. Some were stabbed, and others appeared to have been punched to death. A few bore no wounds at all, but they were missing their heads. There was even one oddly placed pile of dust, suggesting that someone had been disintegrated, somehow.

Inside the massive structure the trail of destruction continued. The trail of corpses weaved through several previously pristine rooms until it finally ended inside the main hangar, a room that could have passed for a stadium by human terms. The gigantic room was the scene of a new battle, between an apparently endless stream of myriad Cabal soldiers and three Guardians. Valus Tau'arc himself was present, arrayed in the regalia of a Cabal Goliath. This beast stood at nearly three stories tall, held a massive gatling gun, and was proud owner of the largest Mohawk in the known universe. The monster pointed his arm towards enemy guardians, light reflecting off of his massive, spiked shoulder pauldrons. A new stream of rockets poured forth from the pack on the Cabal leader's back, flying towards the entrenched Guardians with ferocious speed. The Hunter of the group saw the rockets coming and quickly dove back behind some Cabal crates.

"Yikes!" the Persian sniper began. "I thought my people were the only ones who used that many rockets." More concerned about the appearance of his cloak than his own safety, the blue clad ninja-man dusted away a bit of Martian sand.

Another Guardian, a Titan, clad in vibrant purple armor, nonchalantly turned towards the Hunter from her position sitting upon a crate. The lifeless gaze of her violet visor bore no emotion, no hint of concern.

"If Jack is to be believed, the Vietcong were rather fond of them as well. Thanks for taking me out for a while, Seph. I needed a vacation." Her voice bore the slightest hint of a British accent, a result of her Awoken lineage. One of her hands was visible, the gauntlet that once adorned it laying at her feet. It was a small hand, one surprisingly delicate and feminine for a woman who spent so much time punching aliens to death. She rose her nails up to her visor. The light, violet tint they bore matched her skin, but she still wasn't sure about her choice of nail polish. "I don't know. I like the violet, but maybe I should use some red to match all of the blood that I'm usually covered in. What do you think, Seph?" She turned away from away from her nails and turned back to her Hunter comrade. She failed to realize how intimidating she must have looked, with her visor bearing the crown symbol of the reef and the great, golden spikes sticking out of the back of her helmet. Frankly, Heather had designed the helmet to mimic a crown and to scare the common plebeians that she so often had the displeasure of having to associate with.

"Heather," the Persian love-machine replied, "you know, I really don't care unless a woman is naked. I'm sure both options would like fine."

Heather blew a raspberry, knowing that she should have expected such a response. For all of his faults as a womanizer, at least Seph was honest. He was also significantly less insane than most of her friends, which was pretty nice. She wouldn't fall prey to his charms, but she could appreciate them, from a distance. The Titan casually grabbed her revolver with her gloved hand and shot a Legionnaire that was coming around the corner.

"Is he out of rockets yet?" she asked, changing the subject back to combat. "We've been here for a good ten minutes now."

"No, I don' think so," Seph replied, as he peeked around the corner of his cover with his "Icebreaker" model sniper rifle. Heather was briefly confused by how Seph could be looking down the scope. The sniper was using the infamous "Mask of the Third Man", a model of helmet built using the three eyes of Hive acolytes as lenses.

"Seph, how do you look down the scope with three eyes? Furthermore, how do you even use all three eyes when you only have two?"

"The third eye isn't actually a lens, but a radar…," Seph paused briefly, unsure of how to explain the device, "…thing. It feeds information into my heads-up display so that I can direct my arc knife more efficiently and save power."

"Oh, that makes sense."

Private Jenkins, a Warlock wearing a red shirt over his armor, got finished being fixed up by his ghost and promptly rushed Valus for the hundreth time. Within seconds, his scorched helmet rolled back around the corner and landed at Heather's feet. She sighed deeply before going back to her nails.

"Tough kid," Seph began, "Damn shame he's an idiot. Fix him up, Ghost." A question occurred to Seph. "Heather, why did you want to leave Earth so badly? You don't usually like these assassination jobs.**"**

"Oh, you didn't hear? I had to get away from Jack for a while. He was being stupid again. He ended up joining a Crucible game just to beat up my ex on live television. He seems to think that if he can prove he's some sort of alpha male, then I'll just magically fall in love with him." She sighed a little. "I feel bad for the poor boy. He's so sweet. I've just told him I can't do long distance. I mean, he's insane and I have to eventually overthrow that bitch and take over the Reef…"

"Wait, what was that?"

"Uh, nothing! I said I have an itch and I like…beef…"

"Right…so…your ex? When did you break up with Alex?"

"Oh, I didn't. He just fell off of the Tower. Such a shame. Maybe he would have had better balance if he hadn't cheated on me with that slut Ikora."

Seph gulped nervously. Heather's exes had an unfortunate tendency of falling off of the Guardian Tower.

"You're one scary lady, you know that?"

"Thank you, dear. Now get back to shooting."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Praise the Sun!**

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Rat-a-tat! Pew, pew!" These childish sounds and more rang out across the jungles of Venus as Jack Redgrave fired off a wall of bullets towards the approaching horde of machines. He and five of his comrades were slowly backing up towards the entrance to the Vault of Glass, now opened for the first time since the days of the legendary Guardian, Kabr. Jack was a firm believer in the doctrine of "spray and pray", and as such, bore a machine gun in each hand. In his left hand was the mighty "Thunderlord", an arc-charged weapon of his own design. In his right hand was the immensely annoying-lead spitter called "Super Good Advice", a weapon passed down through the Guardian ranks to anyone insane enough to appreciate a talking gun. One of it's previous owners was murdered by the traitor, Dregden Yor. The Guardian before that was murdered by an angry mob of other Guardians who couldn't get the gun to shut up. "Dun, dun, dun, dun, dap, dap, dap, oops! Click, click, no more bullets!"

"Aw, not again!" Jack exclaimed, irritated. "How am I supposed to kill things when you keep running out of bullets?"

"Why are you asking me? I'm a gun!"

"They gave you a voice, but not a way to reload yourself? Who does that?"

"Hey, I can at least retrieve some of the bullets that you miss with! Have you tried aiming me?" The gun had a point. It did have a nifty "bullet retrieval" feature. A lot of the stray bullets conveniently teleported back into the magazine.

"Maybe I wouldn't need teleporting bullets if you didn't kick so hard! Dammit, I need to reload. Someone get over here and cover me for a second!"

"Shotgun rain!" yelled Corey as he flew through the air, weapon first, spitting hot lead as he flew. A nearby Praetorian collapsed under the weight of flaming buckshot, but the Vex just kept coming.

"We should really get through door now," Glen pointed out.

"I concur," said Coop-43.

"Same here," replied Merlin-23.

"Oh, come on, I just got both of these reloaded!" yelled Jack, eager to unleash fresh magazines of automatic death upon the enemy.

"Jack-"

"No! I never get to spray into a horde of enemies without having to worry about collateral damage! We're staying here! I'm the leader, dammit!" The other members of the party all exchanged tired glances and affirmatory nods. Corey and Coop each grabbed an arm and dragged Jack through the massive door. Jack just kept firing, right up until the massive vault barrier closed behind them. "I thought you guys liked autocrats…" A round of anguished face palms gripped the party before Glen broke the silence and subsequently pointed the way forward.

"Lead us, oh glorious leader."

A single, winding tunnel lead the way forward. It was only about two people wide, so Corey's insistence on riding his sparrow indoors became a loud, levitating elephant in the room. The third time he bumped into Merlin, the machine mage finally lost his cool and set Corey on fire. The end of tunnel led to a sheer drop-off. Below the party was a large platform, mostly flat except for the pit in the middle. The pit was accessible by a set of stairs, and it bore a large shining pool of light. In that light was an odd, shield-like object, suspended in mid-air. Two great pillars marked the middle of the platform and apparently held it in place. Around the great platform was another bottomless pit, marked by occasional smaller platforms. The room was still and silent. It positively screamed "trap".

"Huh," Jack mused, "I didn't think the Vex knew how to make traps."

"Could it actually be an empty room?" Merlin queried rhetorically. "Wouldn't that be great? We just walk in and get paid, for once."

"If only that could be true. Ten glimmer says something explodes when we get down there," replied Glen.

"Oh well," Nathaniel half-sighed, "I'll just throw knives at whatever comes at us."

"Is Soviet saying," started Jack. "The bear that sees the trap cannot be caught by it. The Commies were full of crap, but that one bit made sense. Ugh, I miss having live targets. Vex don't scream."

"Yeah," Glen added, his voice betraying his sentimentality as he wistfully reminisced. "They don't even grunt when you take them down in CQC. Next time, let's kill Fallen. I love twisting up their extra arms and making them choke themselves."

"I know!" Jack exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "Why don't we just send one guy down there to check things out? Someone could sneak around and be out scout. I guess I could-"

"No!" replied the entire party in unison.

"Jack, you're about as subtle as most natural disasters," claimed Coop. "I vote Glen."

"A sneaking mission?" Glen twitched uncomfortably. "Nanomachines" he whispered to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I'll do it. I'll need some kind of camouflage, though. My stealth field doesn't last nearly long enough to scout that whole room."

"I have a solution." Corey finally piped in. "Here's a box." Corey's ghost materialized a rope ladder and then, lo and behold, a cardboard box. It bore "This Side Up" markings and arrows, as well as the odd message of "No Hideo". "You don't want to just jump down, because the impact of the fall might set off some kind of motion alarms or what have you. Take this ladder down, then move around under the box."

Glen quickly approached the box with an uncharacteristic glee, tying it to his back before lowering the rope ladder. Glen took to the ladder and began the long trip down. After a time his party noticed an odd sound.

"Is Glen humming?" asked Jack. The answer was made clear when Glen hit a particularly high note in his song. Glen apparently enjoyed sneaking and using ladders. When the cardboard turtle hit the floor, he got down on all fours and began to sneak about. He walked forward, then quickly went completely prone, hiding his body utterly beneath his cardboard savior. He then walked forward again and repeated the process several more times. Glen didn't realize that his helmet microphone was still on as he started talking to himself.

"This box is perfect. I feel so…safe. This is the best box ever. I was meant to get in this box. My life has new meaning because of this box. The box is my everything. I am the box."

Glen's insane musings were broken up by the sudden materialization of a vast menagerie of Vex Goblins, Hobgoblins, Harpies, and Minotuars. Leading this mob of death machines was a two-story high Hydra, protected by a large, translucent shield. The box lord went completely still.

"Oh, shit."

"Glen, get out of there!"

"How is he supposed to do that? Glen, don't move!"

The giant Hydra moved towards the inert box.

"Guys…."

"Well," Coop began, "you said you wanted to lead, Jack. Lead us. Do something."

Jack rubbed his chin in thought.

"Oh, I know! Praise the Sun!"

"That's not what I m-" Coop was cut off by the sound of every Warlock on the team echoing Jack's exclamation.

"Praise the Sun!"

"Praise the Sun!"

Jack took the lead, bursting into flame and jumping down to the lower platform. Merlin and Cory followed, becoming majestic space infernos as they dove.

"Keep the mooks off us, it jolly cooperation time!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Continue Praising the Sun!**

Fireballs rained down from the elevated platform that most of V.O.S. was occupying. The rather confused Hydra, which later generations would label the "Templar", turned towards the new threat. Despite having two great plasma cannons, the mechanical beast just slowly levitated backwards, unsure of how to deal with the barrage of tiny suns. All three of the Guardian Warlocks present jumped down to the lower platform and continued their assault, lobbing ball after ball of burning pain towards the machine. They all screamed their love of the sun, their words becoming more and more incomprehensible with each new round of attacks.

"Praise the Sun!"

"Praise el sun-a-rino!"

"Praise it, agh!"

"Il sole!"

"Los Solarino del fuego das Tiburon!"

"That doesn't even mean anything!"

Coop looked on, blasting away the smaller robots with his revolver.

"Why does Jack have to be such a dumbass?"

"Well," Nathaniel chimed in between his own shots, "it is working. This tactic, insane as it is, does seem to have confused the Vex to the point of inactivity. You know what, screw it, I'm joining in."

"You're not even a Warlock!"

"I can throw knives at it!"

Nathaniel briefly paused to think. Somehow, he could just feel Glen disapproving about the knives. Glen was staying perfectly still in a box, far below, but his hatred of throwing knives still permeated the air. It was a veritable miasma of disgust, and Nathaniel despised Glen for it.

"I'll show you the power of throwing knives! Praise the Sun!"

Nathaniel jumped down. Coop face-palmed.

"I hate you. I hate all of you."

"Jolly cooperation!"

"Two scoops of praisin's!"

The assault continued, each Warlock working off of the radiant group energy that had been established by the team's general insanity. Nathaniel's knives joined in, harmlessly bouncing off of the Templar's shields. In fact, none of the attacks were penetrating through the massive barriers, but the Templar was still being beaten back through sheer force of stupidity. Finally, it backed up too far, falling into the great abyss that the lowest platform was suspended above. All of the supporting robots, seeing their leader fall, proceeded to teleport away. The gunfire fell silent. The battle ended. Jack's insane plan had prevailed.

"And that is why I'm the leader!" Jack yelled, trying to sound as heroic as he possibly could. The great door at the back of the room opened, as if on cue, revealing the way forward. "Alright, let's move on. Hey, Glen, you can come out now." Glen had not moved since the Hydra had appeared. The cardboard box remained motionless. Apparently, Glen was taking his stealth mission quite seriously. Corey moved over to the box and gently tapped on it.

"Hey, Glen, we-" In a flash, the box was in the air and Corey was on the ground, Glen holding him in an armbar.

"Liquid!"

"Dammit, Glen, what did we tell you about the friggin Judo?"

**Meanwhile, on Mars…**

Seph maintained his cover behind a pile of crates, occasionally popping his head out to see if his foe had expended all of his rockets yet. Heather sat nearby, now with both of her gloves removed. A bottle of violet nail polish could be seen at her side.

"Seph," she queried, "has our host run out of rockets yet?"

"Nope," replied the space sniper, "They just keep coming." Seph's voice trailed off as another volley impacted, shaking the ground violently.

"Oh, well. Pretty, pretty nails…"


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Reflections on Dismemberment**

With the immediate threat gone, the Sovngarde team could proceed. The giant door at the back of the room opened, revealing what appeared to be a winding tunnel system.

"Now that we've gotten Corey's arm back in place," Jack began, "let's move forward."

"Sorry," Glen replied, avoiding eye contact with his peers, "but the last time someone touched my box, I had to kill them before they gave away my position to an entire Russian base."

"You fought the Soviets? Why didn't you ever tell me? I fought a lot of commies in my day too. What was at the base?"

"It was a Metal Ge-uh, missile…guy…base."

"Right."

"I don't ask you a bunch of questions about Vietnam! Shut up!"

"Okay then. Let's move on."

The party moved on, Jack and Glen taking the lead, with Corey right behind. Nathaniel, Merlin, and Coop pulled up the rear, a good distance back from the first group. After all, Jack did have a tendency of setting off of myriad explosive traps wherever he went. The tunnels went on and on, for what seemed like miles. Hoping to pass the time, Merlin started a quiet conversation with Coop.

"Hey, Coop, let me ask you something."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"You know these guys better than Nathaniel and I do. Can you explain their pasts a little bit more for us?

"Yeah," Nathaniel piped in, "their stories are a little off."

"How so?" Coop queried.

"Well," Merlin began, "let's start with Jack, our fearless leader. He's clearly insane. He acts like he's got severe PTSD from his time in Vietnam, but I don't think he was ever there."

"Why not?"

"Well, check this out." Merlin yelled toward the front of the group. "Hey, Jack! Where were you deployed in Vietnam?" There was silence for a moment as Jack apparently dug through his addled mind.

"Uh, the part where the commies were. I killed a lot of commies."

"Thanks!" Merlin lowered his voice back to a sneakier level. "See? I bet you 100 glimmer he couldn't even find Vietnam on a map."

"So," Coop wondered aloud, "If he didn't fight in Vietnam, then why did his ghost resurrect him?"

"Well," Nathaniel responded, "they say that, sometimes, ghosts don't get real warriors. It's pretty hard to tell what a person was, just off of bones. Most ghosts just pick someone surrounded by guns or sharp objects and hope for the best."

"If I recall, they found Jack in a Japanese restaurant in the southeastern United States. He was surrounded by AK's and kitchen utensils. It looked like an attempted robbery gone violent," Coop added.

"Was he robbing the place?" asked Merlin.

"No, it looked like he was defending the place. Of course, that gunfight must have happened right before that volcano exploded and covered the city in ash, petrifying it and leaving it a horrid ghost town full of ash statues to be tread by future generations who would wonder what went so horribly wrong with the tectonic plates."

"God-damned El Nino," Nathaniel reflected aloud. It had truly left a devastating and completely unexpected effect when it returned in the mid 21st century.

"Well," Merlin postulated, "what if he's not really a warrior? He could have been a real Marine, but what if he's just a crazy person who watched one too many _Rambo_ movies, died heroically defending his favorite restaurant, had his fresh corpse preserved in an incredibly unfortunate volcanic eruption, then got resurrected, centuries later, with his memories a jumbled mess?"

"That could be it. Either way, I don't think he's lying. He's not very good at lying. I think that he really thinks that he was in Vietnam and murdered innumerable hordes of communists with his trusty M60 that somehow never ran out of bullets or suffered from an overheated barrel. I say we let him have his fantasy. I've known Jack a long time. He's insane, but his delusions sort of define him. How would he act if he didn't think that he was literally invincible?"

"He might aim a little more."

"Yeah, but then we wouldn't have that amazing covering fire all the time. Hey, remember that time he rammed his ship into that spider tank?"

"Which one?"

All three back-group heroes shared a hearty laugh. The front heroes turned around inquisitively before Coop waved them away.

"Okay, so we've established that Jack's past wasn't real. What's wrong with Glen's history?"

"Well, every time I talk about doing maintenance on my metal gears, he twitches. Watch." Merlin cleared the throat that he didn't have before loudly asking Nathaniel a question. "Hey, Nate, my mechanical brother, how about that sexy exo female working the bar back at the tower?"

"Oh, yeah," Nate began, "I've got a hard drive that she can use. I would love to grind up on her metal gears…"

Glen pretended to not hear them, but he was visibly shaken, twitching ever so slightly at that comment.

"See?" Merlin queried. "You can't say "metal gear" around him. You also can't talk sports near him either. Hey, Nate, you catch that Patriots game this weekend?"

Glen twitched again.

"It triggers him for some reason. I did some research on those words. You search for "metal", "gear", or "patriots" on the old internet, you find some insane rambling from conspiracy theorists about some shadow wars in the early 21st century, along with a codename for some antiquated robotic weapons program. Those don't sound like the kinds of things that a simple soldier would have been involved in. Ask him about his service."

"Hey, Glen," Coop yelled down the hallway, "what did you do before you died? What military did you fight in, again?"

"It was," Glen paused briefly, as if he were trying to remember a story, "the U.S. Army. Semper Fi."

"Thanks."

"See what I mean? That was a Marine thing."

"Alright, that means he's lying. Glen is the sneaky one, so I can imagine him hiding things from us. The question is, who is he then?"

"I don't know. Every time I look into Glen's history, I find the words "Metal Gear", "Patriots", and "Les Enfants Terribles". What all of these things mean is anyone's guess, but that guy knows way too much to be a simple soldier. Furthermore, every conflict that he supposedly served in as a front lines grunt was somehow connected to those phrases."  
The conversation was broken up by some talking by the lead group. They'd apparently found something.

"Well," Jack started, "look at that. It's a bunch of shiny harpies in a maze down there. Let's shoot them." There was, indeed, a sprawling maze below Jack. His group had reached the end of the winding tunnels, only to find another massive cavern, full of new challenges. About a hundred feet below the cliff that Jack stood upon, the great room bore a labyrinth of rock formations, populated by silver hued harpies, all bearing the same, singular, blood-red eye.

"I dunno," Corey interjected, "shiny things tend to have shiny weapon systems."

As if in answer to Corey's words, a boulder fell down, off of the cavern walls, blocking the path of one of the shiny harpies. The harpy stopped, eying the new obstruction. It then released on odd shrieking noise, followed by a gigantic red eye laser that disintegrated the boulder instantly. Jack sighed, his desire for the direct approach suddenly tempered by the realization that his path was being obstructed by floating death machines.

"Glen, get back in the box."

**Meanwhile, on Mars…**

"Wow, that guy is still firing rockets."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: It's Called Character Development, You Dicks**

The resident sneaky member of Sovngarde's vault raiding team returned to Jack, with a bit of bad news.

"Well," he began, "I scanned the whole maze. There's no way to just deactivate these things on the other side. We can either try to fight, which I doubt we have the armaments for, or we can all sneak past. You can follow behind me."

"I guess we don't have a choice," Jack began. "This is why I wanted Banshee to make a gun that shot thermobaric rockets. Let's go."

The party silently descended the cliff face, doing their best to not make a sound. About halfway down the two-hundred foot descent, Corey grabbed a rock that he shouldn't have, causing it to come loose from the wall and loudly fall to the ground. The entire party stared angrily at the klutz, who smiled sheepishly beneath his helmet.

"Dammit, Corey."

The sound didn't alert the shiny laser monsters below, so the rather exposed party made their way to the ground floor without any further incident. Light sloshing noises could be heard as the group did their best to walk quietly through the water. They were now inside a rather large cavern, roughly the size of a pre-collapse football stadium(the American kind, not its communist foreign counterpart). Tiny rivers crisscrossed the floor, occasionally leading to little oblong craters, which bubbled up, revealing the thermal vents that existed below. The water was low in most places, barely coming up to the Guardians' ankles, but it was unclear just how deep some of the larger puddles might be. The thermal vents made the room rather muggy, and Jack was not silent in his suffering.

"It's muggier than pre-volcano Georgia in here. I'm sweating bullets under this coat."

"Heh," Coop chuckled, "puny meat bags and their sweat."

"Alright, guys, shut it and follow my lead," Glen whispered, wasting no time in taking over the team. Jack despised the idea of taking orders from anyone else, but even he recognized that stealth was not his forte. Truth be told, "stealth" was not even really in his vocabulary.

"We'll be right on your ass," Jack replied, "like NBA players on white girls."

Glen pretended to not hear that last bit of stupidity and returned to his box. The cardboard speed turtle quietly tiptoed through the maze, leading his friends left and right, around the great rock structures that created the claustrophobic labyrinth. The party reached a corner, where Glen suddenly stopped. Naturally, Corey's less than stellar reflexes resulted in him tripping over the brown box, making a loud thumping noise. The silver robot around the corner made an inquisitory beep, before floating over towards the group.

"Oh, damn, it's gonna see us!" Merlin whispered.

"Please get Corey off of me," Glen mumbled, his box fort in pieces about him.

"What do we do?" Coop queried. "I don't know if we can kill it before it disintegrates us."

"Nonsense!" Jack replied with glee, obviously quite tired of the ninja bullshit. "We just have to make sure it dies before the laser is charged. Now, it seems pretty instantaneous. If we could just divert it's gaze long enough for some rockets…"

It was at this moment that Nathaniel had a divine revelation from the holy knife gods.

"You mocked me, called my weapon insignificant," he mumbled aloud, the weight of his epiphany weighing heavily upon his mental processors. People had laughed about his throwing knives. "Inefficient", "lame", "pointless", and other insults had been launched towards Nathaniel about his chosen art. Now, now he would finally be vindicated. This would be his shining hour, his redemption! A throwing knife would be the savior of this group of Guardians, and no man could ever doubt their efficacy again! Nathaniel snapped out of his reverie and stepped forward to throw his distraction and lead his comrades to glory!

Then, Corey lobbed a sun grenade with a long fuse around the corner. The little solar ball rolled past the silver harpy, causing the beast to turn and watch it go.

"Now!" Jack roared, a certain, psychotic joy in his voice. The entire team(sans Nathaniel) came running around the corner and let loose with a barrage of bullets, rockets, grenades, and other assorted nonsense towards their robotic foe. The enemy had no time to turn around and quickly fell to their fury. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left but a pile of rather shiny ash.

"Good job, Corey," Jack proclaimed, impressed at his fellow Warlock's tactical prowess. "That was just the distraction that we needed."

"Hey, Nathaniel," Merlin shouted around the corner. "Come on, let's go. That was the last one."

"Dumbass is probably playing with his stupid knives again," Glen observed, his voice laden with contempt.

"I will have my vindication," Nathaniel mumbled, his voice trailing off at the end.

**Meanwhile, on Mars…**

The barrage of rockets continued on, seemingly endlessly. Heather had had time to both paint her nails and then dry them. Seph continued to poke his head around the corner, every now and then, just praying to whatever sick bastard of a god looked after Guardians that he would evntually deplete the Cabal leader's supply of rockets.

"Hey, Seph," Heather began, "you know how you have a magical sniper rifle?"

"I guess," the befuddled sniper replied, unsure of what Heather was getting at.

"Bear with me here. The _Icebreaker_ model of rifle has an onboard manufactory, where tiny little nano-machines build you more ammo, even in the midst of combat."

"That is correct."

"This is a post-collapse, human innovation, right?"

"I do believe so."

"Now, here's the important part. If the races allied under the Traveler, existing in a post-apocalyptic society, are able to create a weapon that regenerates a semi-limitless supply of bullets, does it follow that the Cabal, a group of races under an intergalactic empire that apparently still exists, just might be able to produce a weapon that could produce a limitless supply of rockets?"

Seph stood completely still and seemed to stare off into space for some time. A new round of rockets was fired, impacting into the cover behind him and shaking the ground.

"Seph, are you alr-"

"I will end you, and everything that you love!"

Seph's body overflowed with electricity as he set his Arc Blade to overcharge and sprinted out of cover, sending himself on a testosterone and lightning fueled rampage towards Valus Ta'aurc. Heather giggled a little to herself and pulled her ghost out to start taking video. The stabbing that was to come would be _Youtube_ gold.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: This Raid Is Garbage**

When the Sovngarde team finally exited the maze, they found themselves looking into an abyss, with a new objective on the far side. Above this bottomless hole were numerous platforms, suspended by in the air some unknown space magic. The platforms would occasionally digitize and disappear, only to return from parts unknown a few seconds later.

"Why does this even exist?" Jack queried aloud. "I mean, it's not like the Vex would use these platforms. They'd just teleport. Even if they didn't teleport, why would they make platforms that just vanish for no apparent reason?"

"Doesn't matter," Glen replied, "as I can just fly across the gap. See ya, nerds!" The show-boater activated his arc knife and leapt forward, propelling himself forward with burst after burst of lightning.

"Dammit, Glen! Physics don't work like that!"

"I can't hear you over the sick jumps!"

The party looked on in a mixture of respect and horror. Glen made it safely to the other side, then proceeded to flick everyone else off from his new perch. Jack responded with bullets, forcing Glen to crabwalk the hell out of there.

"Wub, wub, wub, wub, wub!"

"I hate him sometimes."

"I hate him all of the time," commented Coop, adding a few shots of his own from his revolver. "Come on, sick jumps await."

An akward clusterfuck commenced, the five remaining Guardians all jumping from platform to platform at the same time. Jack tried to escape the mob by running ahead, but Cory decided to keep pace and slammed into his back, nearly knocking him into the cruel abyss below.

"Dammit, Cory."

"Aw, hamburgers."

"It has occurred to me that we probably should have done this one at the time."

"What a mess we made when it all went wrong…"

"Having fun up there, faggots?"

"Shut it, Glen!"

"Wait a minute, I have an Arc Blade too!"

"Maybe you would have thought of that if you didn't spend all of your time throwing it!"

Against all odds, the conga line of death made it across the gap without a single ghost having to yell "Guardian down!" Before them stood a gigantic door, composed not of standard Vex metal, but of stone. The party had reached a truly ancient structure, one that possibly predated it's Vex inhabitants. Delusions of grandeur raced through the Guardian's minds. What ancient civilization could have built such a structure? Where did such a people go, and why were the Vex occupying their ruins? What myriad secrets lay beyond the ancient door, just waiting to be discovered?

"Look at it! We're the first people to be here in ages! Kabr may not have even made this far!" yelled Jack, giddy with anticipation. "We may finally learn more about the Vex, or even a precursor civilization! Up and at 'em, lads! Adventure awaits!" Jack carelessly Sparta-kicked the grand door before him. It didn't budge. He kicked it again. It remained still. He kicked it once more. Nothing happened.

"Oh, dammit, Corey, you're too far away for the door to open."

"That literally doesn't make any sense."

"Nothing in this cave makes sense!"

Corey inched forward, causing the gigantic stone door to open. Before the party was a vast room, marked by two Vex warp gates. In the back stood Atheon, a massive, humanoid Vex construct, resembling a gigantic minotaur. As the Guardians entered, the beast awoke, as if from a stasis, and began making incomprehensible computer noises while waving its arms around.

"Oh crap!"

"It's gonna shoot!"

"It's doing Terminator shit!"

"Glorious leader, lead us!"

"Everyone, throw grenades at it at once!"

The team followed the command, lobbing an arsenal of hand-held explosives at the metal monster. Apparently unable to calculate a good response to such brilliant, high-level tactics, Atheon started backing up.

"He's backing up!"

"It's working!"

"I'll throw knives at it!"

Previous teams of Guardians would have(had they survived) warned the team about Atheon's time bending abilities. They would have warned our heroes to watch the warp gates, to destroy the Oracles that would appear, and to avoid Atheon's summoned army of exploding Harpy variants. Fortunately for our team, all of that advice would end being unneeded, as the "Ten-Ton Terror of the Ishtar Sink" simply tripped and fell into a volcanic abyss, having been forced from his perch by sheer weight of grenade spam.

"We did it! Fame and glory belong to V.O.S!" cheered Jack, his ego thoroughly inflated. "My superior tactics win out again! Now, how about that loot? This was a "Vault", right? There should be tons of cool Vex weaponry here to steal!"

"Or maybe some sweet armor, or a nice ship," Coop-43 replied, beginning his search of the room. Try as they might, the brave heroes of Sovngarde could not find a single item of worth in Atheon's room. There were no guns, no pieces of armor, and no ships to be found. The only consolation prizes seemed to be some lame armbands that had some holographic crap on them.

"Seriously? We go through all of this crap and don't get anything?"

"I got some ascendant shards…which I could have gained from dismantling an awesome Vex armor piece!"

"Hey guys, check it out, there's a bunch of buckets of white paint!"


End file.
